208

Chapter 208 — Life Is Cruel (3)

Mages capable of seeing the essence of things directly without relying on an item were rare.

That was why Wave-Cresting Blue Coral had personally come to investigate……

And sure enough, something caught his eye.

Blue Coral narrowed his eyes at the enormous concealment spell covering the merchant company building—a spell that had absolutely no reason to be there.

“This needs to be reported.”

“Did you find something?”

“Probably.”

If the purpose had been to protect the goods, they should have used a shielding spell instead.

Who used concealment magic for protection?

Although both kinds of magic obscured and covered things, shielding was meant to protect, while concealment was meant to hide.

There wasn’t a mage alive who didn’t understand that decisive difference.

A merchant group as large as Gridana shouldn’t be ignorant of it either.

If they promoted someone incapable of distinguishing shielding from concealment to a position of responsibility, they never would have grown into a major merchant company in the first place.

“I will investigate further, so you go report—”

More firmly suspicious than ever, he began speaking, intending to use his escort as a messenger.

Shatter.

Then, accompanied by the phantom sensation of something breaking, that which had been hidden until now revealed itself.

It wore silk clothes without seams or needle marks and leather shoes, and sought to gather all the wealth in the world into a pouch made from burning ice.

Yet the inside of that pouch resembled an abyss without a bottom, never knowing satisfaction no matter how much was placed inside.

And although its hands ceaselessly searched for precious things, those same hands had no understanding of how to make the one they belonged to precious, leaving that being increasingly shabby and wretched.

That was the creature.

That was its “essence.”

“…We’re screwed.”

To “see” essence meant daring to perceive an abstract concept with one’s own eyes.

Nothing could be more intuitive to understand, nor leave less room for doubt.

And so, upon seeing the purest manifestation of greed he had ever encountered—and the Demonic Energy wrapped around it on top of that—Blue Coral slapped a hand against his forehead.

“A demon.”

That was a demon of Greed.

“What?”

“Prepare to fight. A demon is preparing some kind of ritual inside.”

Seriously.

Why did the world never go the way one wanted?

“That……”

Combat was hardly his specialty.

But sometimes, people had to do work outside their field.

Blue Coral ignored his escort’s words and fired a signal flare.

Fweeeee—pop-pop-pop-pop.

With an excessively loud sound, the flare announced danger to everyone nearby.

Its color indicated that a demon had appeared.

And the clear trail it left through the sky would tell approaching reinforcements exactly where to go.

“What the hell?”

“H-Hey! That!”

“A demon! A demon appeared!”

“W-Where……?!”

“Get out of there and run this way! Now!”

Now all they had to do was wait for reinforcements.

Evacuating civilians was merely an added bonus.

“W-Where should we go……?!”

“……! Dodge!”

“Yes—ghk!”

But then, one of the laborers following Blue Coral’s directions out of the merchant company died when a hole was punched through his stomach.

The people a step ahead of him screamed and rushed outside.

“…I was wondering how we got discovered. Why are you here?”

The person who had punched through the worker’s stomach with a bare hand was a woman covered in blood.

Blue Coral only barely recognized her from her hair color and enormous build.

She held the position of secretary to the head of the Gridana Trading Company.

“Is the whole world trying to get in my way?”

Then the secretary gathered Mana around one hand.

No.

Blue Coral could see its essence.

That was Demonic Energy.

“Otherwise, there’s no way you would have appeared here of all places……!”

Covered in Demonic Energy, the hand swelled grotesquely to an enormous size, razor-sharp claws rising from its fingertips.

When he had encountered her two days earlier, there had been no contract brand.

Had she made a contract sometime in between?

Though she had almost certainly been following demons long before that.

“I never tried to get in your way.”

Then again, thinking back, she had possessed an unusually greedy and filthy essence, even among merchants.

It hadn’t been so extreme as to be unheard of in the world, so he had simply overlooked it and continued dealing with her.

Then perhaps from now on, he should take that into account too…

Take it into account…

Wait.

How many people in this world had completely clean essences?

Especially among merchants?

Blue Coral abandoned his attempted self-reflection almost immediately.

Instead, he decided merely to remember a weakness in the Eye that Saw Essence—there was no way to identify someone who merely worshipped demons without entering a contract.

Rustle.

The warrior serving as his escort stepped in front of him and prepared to protect him.

“You blocked your own path.”

Most of the people had evacuated by now, so Blue Coral no longer had to worry about anyone nearby.

He threw an item imbued with explosive magic.

BOOM!

The explosion announced the start of the battle.

* * *

Was this the first time mermen that could consume Mana had appeared here?

I checked the city wall, which had now become chaotic for an entirely different reason, then drew out even more Mana.

I wanted to kill even a few more mermen.

Looking at the total number, it probably wouldn’t make much difference, but still.

“There are way too many of these rotten fish bastards……!”

Ah, stop shouting.

My head hurts.

I grabbed my skull, which felt as though it were about to explode.

Mana Spears needed to be fired only after I identified a target and predicted its next movement, otherwise the timing wouldn’t line up.

And since there were so many targets right now, the amount I had to think about had doubled.

Honestly, at this point I wanted to jump into the ocean and just fire a horizontal slash through everything.

If I got the height right, I could handle them all in one attack.

It carried huge risks and would be fairly brutal, but if it worked, it would be efficient and fast.

…Very brutal and very dangerous, admittedly.

“It’s going to explode!”

My nerves, sharpened to their limit, caught an attack flying toward us.

I’d been too late earlier.

Not this time.

BOOM!

An explosion erupted in midair.

We could hear it from the turret, but unlike before, the impact wasn’t enough to shake the structure.

“You’re the best!”

“Are you a mage? Looking like that, were you originally a mage?!”

Hey, hey, hey, hey!

Stop slapping my back!

You’re breaking my concentration!

Read only on MUGEX

Two Mana Spears just missed because of you!

Ah!

I dodged the Adventurer trying to pound my back in excitement.

Even at that moment, the mermen were still pouring toward us.

I needed to keep attacking.

Splash!

Then mermen attacked from outside the area I had been covering.

Their target was the bridge.

BOOM!

Wow…

Until now I’d never gotten a proper look at how they attacked, but was a legless-type merman seriously just throwing its whole body forward and smashing the bridge with its tail?

Crazy bastards.

“They’re attacking the bridge!”

“Leave them! Kill the ones in front of us!”

I watched the merman that had smashed its tail against the bridge tumble back into the sea, unable to find words.

Did it really want to do that even knowing its own tail would be crushed and broken?

Judging by their behavior, they seemed to possess roughly human-level intelligence.

Did being demons make them less afraid of pain?

“Still, I’m glad it’s the same as usual. They were so late this time, I was worried they might bring a tsunami with them or something.”

Then an Adventurer three places down muttered that.

S… T… O… P!

Stop raising flags……!

Stop saying things that make it sound like a tsunami is coming……!

BOOM!

“……!”

See?!

The instant you finished saying that, something exploded!

At the faint but bizarre noise in the distance, I raised my head sharply.

They’d told us not to leave our positions, but I had to check this.

I put a little strength into my legs and jumped, passing through the ladder opening and reaching the floor above.

One more level would take me to the roof.

“Wait! Where are you going?! Disobeying orders—!”

Tap!

I jumped again and finally reached the top of the turret.

The dimly illuminated nighttime sea spread across my vision.

“Get down here! No matter how capable you are……!”

Thump-thump-thump.

The soldier who had guided me here and was commanding this position eventually climbed up after me.

He looked extremely angry, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.

“I told you not to act on your own! Get back dow—”

“Can’t you see that?”

“…What?”

Anyone who saw what was floating in the dark sea would probably react the same way.

“…What the hell is that?”

During the day, the horizon beyond the sea had been completely empty.

But now, something resembling land had faintly appeared.

Something huge and vaguely rounded.

And it kept growing larger, almost as though it were approaching us.

“An island……?”

Then the waves began growing stronger.

Of course they did.

I had no idea what that thing actually was, but if it truly was moving toward us, it would be perfectly natural for its movement to send waves ahead of it.

“This isn’t the time……!”

The soldier suddenly jolted.

Was he really about to tell me to go back to my position even after seeing that?

If so, his professionalism was admirable.

But instead, the soldier grabbed a nearby device.

Tap, tap-tap, tap, tap-tap-tap.

A searchlight.

It looked surprisingly similar to a modern one, except it was more primitive, using a front cover that could be raised and lowered.

The way he opened and closed the shutter to send patterns of light reminded me of Morse code back on Earth.

Other cities were barely beyond beacon fires, so why was this place so technologically advanced?

“Whew.”

Anyway, I couldn’t exactly stand around doing nothing while the soldier worked.

I wanted to keep observing that thing, so I couldn’t bring myself to go back down…

And honestly, my exact location wasn’t especially important for killing mermen.

Watching the massive landform steadily grow larger, I formed clusters of Mana Spears.

They rained down like a storm, ignoring the boundaries between turret sectors and killing dozens upon dozens—hundreds—of mermen.

By my rough estimate, I’d killed three or four hundred by myself at this point.

Raid MVP was definitely mine.

Not that I’d ever wanted it.

And it wasn’t useful either.

Hmph.

“Retreat!”

While I made stupid jokes to myself to relieve the tension, a signal came from the city wall.

Good call.

The distance was hard to judge, which probably meant that thing was unbelievably huge.

If something that large actually reached us, these turrets would honestly become a game of Jenga.

In other words, it probably wouldn’t even need to ram into them.

A sufficiently hard shove alone might send everything crashing down.

“Lower floors out first! Everyone else, cover them!”

The soldier descended as if he had forgotten about me entirely.

At his shout, the inside of the turret stirred before movement began.

The bridge had become rather precarious after being struck several times by the mermen, but nobody complained.

Naturally.

Taking one more step toward safety would do more for their survival than standing around complaining.

All right.

Then what I needed to think about now was how to kill that thing.

Its identity was still unclear because of the darkness and poor visibility, so devising a countermeasure wasn’t easy.

Still, if it was that wide and enormous, there would be plenty of places to stand on it.

Fighting it might actually be easy.

Thinking about what would happen if it simply crashed into the wall and demolished it was already making my head hurt, though.

“They’re coming!”

“Run……!”

I smashed the head of a merman leaping up to destroy the bridge, then dealt with those climbing the turret.

Seriously, their awareness was absurdly sharp.

The moment they realized we were retreating, they swarmed us.

“Go. I’ll cover you.”

“…Damn it. People like you are the ones I hate most. You ruin discipline!”

But people live.

I sent them ahead while receiving what was and wasn’t quite a scolding—the person saying it was clearly worried about me.

Mana Spears continuously formed and fell toward the sea like rain.

Rain that stole lives instead of bringing warmth.

“Aaaagh!”

While I was at it, I also watched the nearby turret.

Apparently they had received the retreat order as well, because the people over there were pulling back.

“Cross over!”

Fortunately, it didn’t take long for everyone to retreat.

Receiving the signal from the opposite side, I began preparing to leave the turret as well.

My Mana had conveniently dropped below half, so it was about time I crossed over and reorganized anyway.

“Whoa!”

“Watch out!”

BOOM!

The problem was…

Well.

Everyone had already crossed.

Several mermen had been attacking simultaneously for a while.

My head hurt too much, and I was getting irritated, so I stopped paying attention to them.

And eventually, several managed to smash the bridge.

Rumble!

Just like I’d been warned, the bridge collapsed even faster than I expected.

“……!”

Before my body could reach the other side, the bridge I was supposed to land on crumbled away.